Production of conventional solar panels is highly expensive and the process may not always be green. A team of MIT researchers has figured out a green technique to produce solar panels using grass clippings. DIY enthusiasts will be excited to know about this project, which will help them to produce solar cells from a mix of grass or agricultural waste and other readily available stuffs.
Researchers have identified that nothing in nature can soak energy as plants can. Thus, they nurtured a green solar production method by using some grass clippings, some amount of stabilizing powder, which is made of titanium oxide and zinc oxide along with a metal or glass substrate to replicate the photosynthesis process.
In fact, it has been a successful effort from the MIT researchers in chemically stabilizing the photosystem-I, the structure responsible for performing the process of photosynthesis inside plant cells. Well, the same photosynthesis will work for the new solar panels for producing power as the substrate will produce an electric current when exposed to sunlight.
The MIT researcher Andreas Mershin, hopes that in future, a mixture of all the above mentioned items will made into a paint that people can apply to their roofs in place of solar panels. Indeed, it is a brilliant idea that DIYers can simply adopt anywhere in the world.
Researchers claim that it will be easy for anyone to create solar panels quite cheaply this way. However, they are still working hard to improve the efficiency of the new solar panels. The current rate of efficiency of this technology is less than 2 percent, which should be increased by tenfold to make it a reliable source for solar energy production.
Via: GreenProphet
